UDUAGHAN’S SUCCESSOR: WHOSE SACRIFICE WILL THE GODS ACCEPT?

Although, the year 2015 is still far away, glimmers of things to be expected before, during and after the governorship election have started rolling out in Delta State. No fewer than 12 contestants from across the three senatorial districts of the oil rich state are already jostling to succeed Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, who has not finished his tenure. DOMINIC ADEWOLE in Asaba, reports that the race may after all not be for any of the early risers as was proven with the election of Uduaghan in 2007.

Although, none of those who have shown interest has come up with a blueprint for the development of the state, faceless groups, corporate organisations, socio-political pressure groups, women affairs and community development associations, who have laid claim to the wind of positive change in the state, have started drumming support for their preferred aspirants.

But the Anioma Agenda (AA), a political pressure group at the fore-front of an Anioma for Governor, come 2015, has warned against the era of anointing a particular aspirant and imposing him or her on the people of the state.

 The group, led by its Chairman, Alex Onwuadiame, a lawyer, the Director (Media/Research), Oyibosochukwu Nwabueze and the state President of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Sir Vincent Ugbelase, maintained that only aspirants who subsume their personal ambition to the common interest of Anioma nation, would on the merit of service and sacrifice, be considered.

While the group has vowed to resist any deliberate attempt to sabotage the collective interest of a Delta-Northerner succeeding Uduaghan, the ‘big’ three in the race, including the incumbent Speaker of the state’s House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Victor Ochei, an Engineer, President Goodluck Jonathan’s Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder Godsday Orubebe and the Senator, representing Delta North Senatorial district, Dr. Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa, have locked themselves up in hi-tech subterranean moves.

 The unfathomable politics being orchestrated by the Speaker (Ochei), the Nigerian Compass recently gathered, has thrown the camp of Senator Okowa and Elder Orubebe, into confusion.

Not that the ‘big’ three, as they are fondly referred to, have indicated interest in succeeding Governor Uduaghan; Okowa’s counterpart in the Senate, Pius Ewherido, representing Delta Central;  Human-Rights lawyer, Mr. Festus Keyamo; Chief Godswill Obielum, and a host of others, are confirmed aspirants, eyeing the plum position but they were not counted among the three.

No doubt, Ochei, alongside other aspirants from Delta North Senatorial District of the state, stand the chance of succeeding Governor Uduaghan but the full-scale plot by Orubebe to pose challenge from Delta South Senatorial district, where Uduaghan hails from, will definitely not make the journey easy for him. 

Ochei dashed into the politics of the oil rich state through opposition party. He soon launched himself into the mainstream politics of the state when he boldly decamped to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) after winning the Aniocha North constituency seat in 2003, on the platform of the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP). Because he is level-headed, humane and possibly delivered on his campaign promises, his people re-elected him in 2007 under the PDP. 

That saw to his rising profile in the politics of the state. The mantle of leadership of the House fell on him shortly after Okowa resigned as the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) during the 2011 election to contest Delta North Senatorial seat and defeated the wife of the former National Chairman of the PDP, Mrs. Nneamaka Ali. Then, Ochei gave Okowa his full support, having allegedly calculated that his chance has come to be the Speaker. Before Okowa left for Abuja. 

Comrade Ovuozerie Macaulay was appointed to replace Okowa as SSG by Governor Uduaghan. Since Macaulay hails from the Governor’s Delta South district and the state’s Deputy Governor, Prof. Amos Utuama (SAN) is from Delta Central, the Speaker was zoned to Delta North, being the number three man in the state must – that was how Ochei coasted to the Speakership seat. Having assumed the seat, he believes he must aspire higher. 

He is now aiming to be the next Governor of the state. Will he realise his dream? Although, power, they say, belongs to God, the elder statesman of the oil rich state and foremost Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, has since rejected him. Clark was a Minister of Information during the First Republic. For Clark, Ochei is unclean. 

The South-South Leader has since accused him of swindling the state of N27b, the money, he said was earmarked for the state’s Independent Power Plant (IPP) at Oghara, in Ethiope West Local Government Area of the state. The Speaker, in 2011, denied the allegation when it was first published in national dailies but kept mum when the elder statesman posed the allegation again last month. Pundits say Ochei was not smart in not replying Clark but should clear himself of the mess before advancing forward to pick the governorship form. 

That was not the first time Clark would reject an aspirant or a candidate for governorship election in the state and fail. Will he again fail in this one, especially now that a political pressure group, from Isoko nationality where the SSG-jostling to be deputy in 2015, hails from- has endorsed Ochei? In 2007, he (Clark) failed after disowning the incumbent Governor Uduaghan’s candidature when his cousin, the former Governor of the state, Chief James Onanefe Ibori, anointed him as his successor. The elder statesman has since reconciled with the Governor. Will the elder statesman fail over Ochei’s ambition if Uduaghan went ahead to anoint him? 

 Orubebe is President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s Minister of Niger Delta Affairs. He recently fell out with his godfather, Chief Clark, having engaged him in war of words over who should succeed Governor Uduaghan in 2015. His utterances have since earned the Minister a suspension from the PDP in his home town – Burutu Local Government Area of the state. Clark did not only tell Orubebe point-blank to stop eyeing the governorship seat of the state but was blunt when he said the seat was not meant for “political rascals”. 

Orubebe, the Nigerian Compass gathered, incurred the wrath of the elder statesman when he allegedly, according to Chief Sunday Iyawa, a member of the Forum of Delta State Elders, Leaders, Stakeholders, deleted the names of the nominees Clark forwarded for the tripartite reconciliation / harmonisation exercise that would sanitise the state’s chapter of the PDP, a development, Iyawa said “eventually threw the Minister into a state of nature where anything goes.” Instead of Orubebe to keep mum as Ochei did when the elder statesman accused him, he engaged him in a verbal war. 

Although, the stance of Clark simply laid the speculation that he was against Orubebe’s ambition, the war of words that trailed his rejection forced Chief Iyawa, to describe, Chief Ekwagbe, Orubebe’s former Special Adviser as a man who has “ignoble privilege of serving as the Minister’s Special Adviser”, even as he said “obviously morally beleaguered minister, came out of obscurity to make vituperative representation against Chief E.K. Clark, a nationalist, statesman, former Hon. Commissioner for Education, Midwest state (1962-1972), Hon. Federal Commissioner of Information (1972-1975) foremost Ijaw National Leader, who has not spiced up firm belief in the self-affirmation of the Ijaw, with pettiness and irredentism.” 

While Chief Iyawa, lambasted Ekwagbe for forgetting in a hurry that “the banal privilege of counseling Orubebe for the unfortunate duration that he served in the undeserved pomp and platitudes of unmerited ministerial office, he wondered why he (Ekwagbe) “failed lamentably to white-wash the following hard facts about his former boss who allegedly acquired more than 20 houses in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)”, outside his monthly emoluments. According to Iyawa, Ekwagbe shot himself and Orubebe in the foot with his blunder, couched, as it were, in the opprobrious dress of cheap hero-worship, self disdain and a tragic misjudgment of intricacies of the political firmament.”  

He maintained that “In the light of the weighty allegations of corruption against Mr. Orubebe, coupled with his many sins and failure to deliver on his mandate, we demand for his immediate resignation as cabinet member. Besides, we call on anti-graft agencies to commence the immediate investigation of all allegations of corruption against the minister in the interest of fairness and justice. As for his unbridled 2015 governorship ambition, we wish to maintain that the oracle (Clark) has spoken. There is no way he can make it. He can never be the governor of Delta State.” Is that supposed to be a verdict? The Nigerian Compass gathered that the Minister is determined to contest the race and win, come 2015. He wants to ensure that the elder statesman would beaten twice. 

 Senator Okowa was Ibori’s Commissioner for Health before he became Governor Uduaghan’s SSG. He gained in-road to the SSG position after the national body of the PDP in Abuja, through the instrumentality of the then President, Chief Olusegun Obsanjo, and his political godfather (Ibori), allegedly prevailed on him to dump his ambition to be Governor in 2007, when he was to engage Uduaghan in a run-up election after the party’s primary election at Ogwashi-Uku, in Aniocha South Local Government Area of the state. He has since incurred the wrath of his teeming supporters for ‘selling’ the chance of a Delta Northerner from becoming the Governor of the state in 2007 and harkening to Abuja pressure. The ghost of the chance he lost that year is still tormenting him. 

Although, he became the “Ekwueme of Delta North politics” thereafter, gained favour in the sight of Ibori and was recognised as a ‘loyal party man’ by the national body, he has since portrayed himself as an unpredictable politician to his supporters. Yes, he still has thousands of followers still behind him and claimed to have embarked on massive consultation with the inner caucus of his campaign organisation before he stepped down for Uduaghan that year, 90 per cent of them are yet to recover from the shock of the manner he chickened out of the race in 2007. Besides, he is yet to fully pacify Mrs. Ali (wife of the former national chairman of PDP, Senator Ahmadu Ali) whom he took to the cleaners during the 2011 Delta North senatorial race, despite the fact that the state chairman of the party, Chief Peter Nwaoboshi, was fronting for her. 

Already, his stickers for 2015 gubernatorial race have flooded the state, such that, hardly can you see a car, belonging to his camp members, without “Okowa for 2015” sticker not boldly pasted on it. Will he make it, especially now that some of his foot-soldiers, the likes of Ochei, have indicated interest in the race, and has since been endorsed by an Isoko bloc at Chief Abel Ubeku’s house in far-away Lagos State,  even though, the development has torn the unity among Isoko leaders into shred. Or is Ochei simply showcasing Okowa’s face in disguise?

 In the legal profession, the name – Festus Keyamo, is not strange. He is a human rights lawyer to the core. Although, he was not categorised among the ‘big’ three, he has since said his aspiration was to create an enabling environment for all Deltans to participate in an electoral process without fear of intimidation, brigandage and rigging, maintaining that “I will be ready to go to prison, if necessary, in my struggle to free the state (Delta) from a cabal that primes in primitive accumulation of wealth.” 

The Nigerian Compass learnt that Keyamo did not make the ‘big’ three list because his kinsman (Ibori) occupied the seat for eight years, hence the seat should rotate to other districts of the state. His dashing entrance into politics has not left many in doubt, owing to the fact that he has since been on the struggle to set the captives free, declare a year of favour for the oppressed and feed the hungry through legal technicalities. No fewer than 15 opposition parties in the state, under the aegis of the Association of Registered Political Parties (ARPP), led by its chairman, Comrade Monday Emuariah, have since endorsed his candidature, when they visited him in his Effurun home, in Warri. 

They were received by the leader of the Delta Forces United (DFU) from the 25 councils of the state. According to ARPP’s chairman, “We are here to align our position with the aspiration of Keyamo, whose entry into the governorship race we considered a good omen for Delta state politics.” Although, the group urged Keyamo to fine-tune his blueprint, some of the parties, including the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the party being muted for his soft-landing, the Accord Party (AP), the state’s chapter of the Labour Party (LP), have since disassociated themselves from Keyamo’s endorsement, suspending their state Secretaries and constituting a Disciplinary Committee to probe his presence at the parley. Will Keyamo’s ambition fly? More so, that a sitting Senator, from the same senatorial district, is in the race and allegedly jostling to use the same ACN platform to contest?

  Ewherido was not shortlisted among the ‘big’ three because he hails from the same district with Ibori who governed the state for eight years. Ewherido dumped PDP shortly before the build up to the 2007 election for its arch-rival, Democratic Peoples Party (DPP), being sponsored by Chief Great Ogboru in the state. He was formerly the Deputy Speaker of the state’s House of Assembly between 2003 and 2007. He claimed to have been maltreated by the powers that be in the state chapter of the party before he sought refuge in the opposition DPP. 

Because he is loved home and abroad, he contested the Delta Central seat in 2011 under DPP and defeated the Deputy state Chairman of PDP, now Governor Uduaghan’s Senior Special Political Adviser, Chief Ighoyota Amori. All efforts to woo him back to his original party have allegedly proved abortive. Ewherido was recently fingered in the crisis that recently rocked his party, forcing the party to slam a suspension on him. He was said to have secretly sold his party when he connived with the controversial merger parties – the All Progressive Congress (APC) to be their flag-bearer in Delta State by 2015. Meanwhile, his party was said to have refused to join the merger. 

So, he is being punished for anti-party activities. When he recently presented his two year scorecard within the state, he was unperturbed that his party executives and the powers-that-be in the party were practically missing out. Pundits are of the opinion that his chance of clinching the position in 2015 is narrow. Why? Ibori, who hails from the same Central district with him has governed the state for eight years, Uduaghan is currently filling the position for Delta South. So, all eyes is on Delta North man to be the next governor. Secondly, he has lost the sympathy of his party. More so, that APC is alien to the people of the state. He must work harder if he must succeed Uduaghan. 

Chief Godswill Obielum retired as an Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) during the tenure of the former Governor of Rivers State, Chief Peter Odili, and a Chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Big Heart state. Obielum recently indicated interest in the race when the Anioma Agenda (AA), a socio-political group, at the fore-front of an Anioma man, succeeding Governor Uduaghan in 2015, visited him in his country home. 

While he acknowledged that Nigeria’s democracy is developing very fast with the level of freedom being witnessed, he said Governor Uduaghan’s administration has recorded generational achievements, especially in the areas of job creation, ensuring good learning environment through massive infrastructural development in the education sector and good neighbourliness among ethnic nationalities. On his interest for the governorship position, a position he contested in 2007 PDP primaries, but lost to Uduaghan, he said, “it is God that gives power…” But in 2007, when he came out for the race, he didn’t sound like that. Then, he brandished Abuja might. He must have learnt his lessons. Because the national body of the party was behind him, he was forceful, before he was made by Ibori to bow to the grassroots forces that were mobilised against him. 

Before he failed the party’s primary election at Ogwashi-Uku, he told anybody that cared to listen that he would succeed Ibori, until he became the scapegoat of the give-and-take politics between Obasanjo and Ibori, when they both substituted former Senator Francis Osakwe, who they planted in the Accord Party against PDP’s Nneamaka Ali and Obielum for Uduaghan. He is still eyeing the seat but will he get it especially now that he was not shortlisted among the ‘big’ three?

 While the calculation and the permutation are rife, a PDP source in the state said “the caucus of the party will soon spring its surprise as Ibori did in 2007, when he waited till the 11th hour before anointing Uduaghan. The source, however, said the pendulum is gradually settling down on a one time Commissioner for Health, Commissioner for Information, under the defunct administration of Ibori, former Director of Protocol under the present administration of Governor Uduaghan, and now, the Chief of Staff of the state, Dr. Festus Okunbor. Okunbor, the Nigerian Compass gathered, distinguished himself as Commissioner and more importantly during the rerun and 2011 elections when he delivered as the Director of Uduaghan Campaign Organisation. “His loyalty to the party and its constituted authority has never been called to doubt. He is a goal-getter and level headed. He is not offensive. He is a detribalised Deltan”, the source said. He has not been categorised among the ‘big’ three because his ambition is still in the coolers. How will he outsmart the ‘big’ three? Will he be generally accepted in 2015 as the plot thickens ahead of the race? Time will tell.

Culled from Compass